


Dissenter

by HelloAfternoon



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 09:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5822509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelloAfternoon/pseuds/HelloAfternoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn wakes up and Rey isn't there. Nobody is there.</p><p>He's always been on the outside. Why would that ever change?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dissenter

Finn is out. He is free. He can do anything that he wants; physical therapy had been arduous and hellish, but here he is, released from the medbay permanently.

It has been a rough few months.

He is alone. He is alone in a way that is unfamiliar to him. He supposes he’s always been that way-closeness among stormtroopers was discouraged by the barrel of a blaster-but this time it’s different. He has his own room, which is almost completely empty. There’s a bed, a chair, and a desk. There is nothing on the walls and nothing on the floor.

He folds Poe’s jacket over the back of the wooden chair. His quarters are very small, but still much larger and emptier than he is accustomed to, and when he walks into the bathroom and sits on the lid of the toilet, his knees don't touch a wall. He has room.

His shampoo and soap are blank, scentless, and what he’s used to, though.

He hates this feeling.

_Useless._

He doesn’t talk much. He didn’t before, and he doesn’t now. Who would he talk to? Rey is gone, and Poe has been off base since before Finn woke up, not scheduled to return from his mission just yet. General Organa assured Finn that it was quite routine, just that it would take a long time. Several rendezvous points to meet, several people to save, something along those lines. Finn doesn’t begrudge any of it; it’s not as thought he’d have any right to, anyway.

He gets up at 5:30 every morning. He showers, brushes his teeth, and dresses in fifteen minutes. His clothes had to be issued to him, a soldiers clothes. In the resistance, things look different; his uniform is brown and made mostly of cloth rather than a slick black bodysuit and armor. It’s more comfortable, Finn notices. He also gets his fair share of plain t-shirts and pants, which he wears most often. He doesn’t know if he’s a soldier any more.

So he steps out in a t-shirt and Poe’s old jacket, mended crudely at the back with a patch that strikes up his spine like lightening.

He walks straight to the mess hall, eats before very many people are there, and then leaves. Jessika-one of Poe’s friends, a pilot- waves to him and he waves back, but forgets to smile. He's used to having the helmet on.

He thinks they might be afraid of him. Or, at the very least, afraid _for_ him.

He goes to the gym.

General Organa has put him on standby; he’s suspended from activity until he’s delegated to an area suited to him, and until he is freed from his weekly therapy sessions. Until then, he occupies himself.

Maybe he’s still a stormtrooper at heart or maybe he’s just what people would call a busybody. Either way, he can’t understand the amount of free time he’s suddenly handed, can’t understand what the Resistance does. They have time between missions, between meals; what do they do with it if they aren’t working?

So he sets about working. He reads, he watches, he trains, he shoots. He does almost nothing but those things.

He pushes himself past his limits at every opportunity. He works until he can’t work anymore, until he drops a weight or falls asleep pouring over data-tapes. The only company he ever seems to keep is with his therapist or with the medical droids, which tend to regard him rather coldly. Or maybe that’s just how droids are, he can’t tell.

He steps onto the scale in the gym and weighs himself. He’s put all his weight back on and then some. He breathes out. This, he has control over. This, he can measure. He knows he is productive as long as there are measurable results.

Later, during therapy, he’s asked a few questions.

“And are you adjusting?”

“What?” he says, startled back to attention after having drifted off.

“Adjusting to the Resistance and it's people. Are you?”

He has no idea. Things are pretty much the same. He shrugs. “I guess so.”

“You guess so?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you made any friends?”

Finn frowns. "I already have friends.”

“Friends aside from Poe Dameron and the jedi in training?”

His breath hitches.

“Finn,” the therapist says in his monotone, metallic saw of a voice, “your recovery has been remarkable. Your physical condition is peaking, and your mental condition, while imperfect, is stable,” it says. “Soon, you will be cleared for activity and placed into your proper role. I suggest that you take the next step.”

Finn’s brows furrow. He feels uncomfortable all of a sudden, the inside of Poe’s jacket to rough on his wrists. “The next step?”

“Try to fit in,” the therapist says.

Finn just nods. Afterward, he walks back to his room in the barracks. Once he gets inside and plops his jacket off, he reads until it’s time for lights out. Then he sleeps until 5:30 the next morning. He does it over and over and over again.

Until he doesn’t, because he’s forced to stop.

“Finn!”

He almost doesn’t respond, unused to being called on, too busy doing preacher curls and zoning out.

“Finn, look up!”

He does. Jessika is standing in the doorway to the gym. She’s grinning ear to ear, bright like the sun, and he’s taken aback a bit. Her smile is infectious, and he’s already grinning by the time she’s striding over to him, happy to see her despite knowing almost nothing about her at all.

“Yeah?” he responds.

"Didn’t know you could smile,” she says, and pats his shoulder. “Come on, Poe’s back!”

“Poe is…” he pauses, mind running itself in a circle. “ _Poe Dameron?_ ”

“I-what? Yes, Poe Dameron! C’mon, he just landed! We can catch him before he’s carted off to the medbay for screening,” she says with a cackle. “Jesus, are you lifting these?” she whistles, distracted by his weights, which he drops immediately. “Why, are you punishing yourself for something?”

But he’s already walking briskly in the other direction. He realizes too late that he’s just left two very heavy weights on the ground, which is enormously rude, but he can’t bring himself to care very much about that. Jessika jogs up behind him.

Finn isn’t a tall guy, so he has trouble seeing over the small crowd of mostly pilots milling about in the hangar, the last of the ships finally docking.

“Poe?” he says, to no one and certainly not loud enough to actually be heard over the surrounding bustle.

“This way,” Jessika says, taking his forearm and dragging him across the landing strip. It was kind of her to come get him, he thinks.

Then he sees Poe’s ship. Then he sees Poe’s friends. Then he sees POE.

“Poe!” he shouts, before he can stop himself, and man, shouting sounds weird, feels weird. His own voice is strange in his ears.

Poe looks like Poe always looks. Messy, dirty, somehow perfect. His hair is a bedhead, helmet-mashed mess, and he’s grinning brightly at someone Finn doesn’t recognize.

“Poe Dameron!”

“Finn, slow down!” Jessika shouts, but he’s already sprinting down the strip.

It has been a long, long time since he’s seen Poe’s face.

There’s a dawning look of comprehension that sweeps over Poe’s features as the crowd parts in the wake of a sprinting ex-stormtrooper, one pilot jerking another out of the way just in time to avoid getting bowled over.

Then he’s around Poe. He doesn’t know what happens in-between, just that he’s suddenly there. Poe almost topples, stumbling backwards from the force of what could be loosely described as a hug. And _oh_ , he smells just like Finn remembers. Sort of bad, actually, like he’s been pickled in his flight suit, but Finn doesn’t care.

“Fuh- _Finn?!_ ” Poe chokes, and Finn can’t see his face, but it sounds like he's shocked.

A bolt of fear races down Finn's back and he jerks away suddenly.

"Sorry, sorry!” he says. The small crowd of pilots is laughing mercilessly at him.

He looks up and meets Poe’s eyes. Poe is just standing there, disheveled, out of breath from who knows what. His eyes are wide like dinner plates and his lips are slack, his cheeks and ears flushed from surprise.

“Finn?” he murmurs, quietly this time, eyebrows knitting together, squinting slightly as if Finn is some kind of mirage. “You’re...you’re okay!”

“Yeah!” Finn says, grinning back at Poe as a smile stretches over his face like the sunrise.

“You’re awake!”

"Yeah!”

And then Poe is almost on him, almost trying to climb him, shoulders around shoulders around arms around arms and then, whoops, Poe loops his legs around Finn’s waist, and Finn is very lucky to have been lifting so much because Poe weighs a _lot_. He’s a grown-ass man in flight gear, of course he does.

He’s also cackling like a hyena right into Finn’s ear. It’s too loud and hurts a little and Poe's coarse stubble scrapes Finn’s neck and the lobe of his ear, but it’s the best thing Finn can remember having felt since-since-he doesn’t even know, he can’t even remember anything this good.

Then Finn hears the load of hooting and hollering going on around them and grins helplessly, a little embarrassed because the other pilots are cheering and whistling and laughing their asses off.

“Poe Dameron is crying!” Jessika whoops from somewhere. “Somebody take a picture!”

Poe’s thighs must get tired because he finally releases Finn from his whole-body grip, dropping down onto the ground with a slight bounce and a flush to his cheeks, looking at Finn with large, empathetic eyes and a big smile and Finn just _burns_ for him.

“Poe, I-”

“Alright, alright, break it up!”

There’s a lot of “aww"-ing from the crowd as a nurse and two medical droids force their way through the small group.

“You, beat it!” the nurse says to Finn, who backs off immediately. Poe reluctantly releases a hold on Finn’s hands that Finn hadn’t noticed he’d been keeping and looks dismayed, turning to the nurse and droids.

"I’m fine! You vultures can’t let me a have a reunion in peace?” he grouses.

“Dameron, you carried out your last reunion with three cracked ribs. You are going to the medbay,” the nurse scolds, pointing a finger right at Poe’s face like they’ve known each other all their lives; or, at the very least, like Poe might get hurt a lot.

Poe is prodded by a droid and groans, consenting to being transported to the medbay for examination.

He does, however, turn quickly back to Finn, even as he’s being shoved away. Finn himself is a little too good at following orders to pursue him, a little more tuned to doing what people say than the others in the resistance, and just stands there obediently.

“Finn!” Poe says. “Uh,” he starts, swallowing, and Finn can actually see tears in his eyes.

Nobody cries over a stormtrooper. Nobody but Poe Dameron.

Finn feels something huge and heavy swell in his chest like a balloon, barely contained in his body, which responds by shaking very slightly and making his eyes water.

“See you soon, okay, buddy?” Poe says, and they just stare at each other, nothing between them but air.

For a moment it seems like something else should happen, like something else is _supposed_ to happen; like one of them is meant to say or do something for this goodbye, this second, less painful goodbye, but then nothing happens at all, and Poe is being dragged away by the nurse. He's tailed by two pilots who Finn assumes are his friends.

“Can’t believe you made him cry,” Jessika says, startling Finn slightly. He’d forgotten about the onlookers, and she just appears next to him like a magic trick. She wipes her nose on her glove. “He’s such a bleeding heart, honestly,” she says with an affectionate grin, and punches Finn’s bicep.

“Yeah, he is,” Finn says, sniffing slightly because he can’t really get away with wiping his eyes and just has to blink back what he is pretending aren't tears. “Dealt with me, anyhow.”

“Aaah, you ain’t so bad,” Jessika teases, her smile crinkling the edges of her eyes. Finn decides that he likes her. “Why don’t you join us for dinner tonight? You always wolf your food down and then disappear like a ghost.”

“Oh, sorry.”

Finn doesn’t know if he actually wants to eat with anyone, but he’s jittery with excitement about Poe and filled with something he hasn’t experienced in a long time, so he agrees.

He’s introduced to Temmin Wexley that evening. He and Jessika seem to have some sort of friendship. Finn can’t remember the other names; he still has trouble with that, how everyone has different names in the Resistance. Almost everyone he knew in the Order was just FN-something, which made it easier to remember. When he tells Jessika this, she looks at him like he’s batshit crazy.

“Are you kidding me? Who could remember all those numbers?”

And then he recalls for the thousandth time that he’s different from them. He eats the rest of his food and excuses himself, having gotten used to eating very quickly during his time with the First Order. He really wants to talk to Poe, anyway.

Fortunately, he gets to the medbay just as Poe is being discharged, along with a few other pilots Finn assumes flew with him. He sees Poe down the end of the hallway, pushed out of a room by an annoyed droid. BB-8 is hot on his trail, and almost slams into the back of his legs.

“BB-8!” Finn shouts. The droid and Poe both respond, looking up suddenly and in almost perfect sync. The droid trills excitedly-Poe smiles, bright and slow and stunning-and speeds toward Finn with frightening velocity. Finn bends down to reach for it and it almost topples him over, much heavier than it looks, its domelike head swiveling and beeping excitedly.

“Hey, hey! I missed you!” Finn says. He pets BB-8. He doesn’t know if you’re supposed to pet a droid, but he does anyway.

Then he’s just squatting on the ground in the hallway, disrupting traffic. BB-8 extends one of its pincers and Finn, unsure of what else to do and unable to understand it’s language, takes the end of the pincer and shakes it like a little hand. BB-8 makes some noise which seems to indicate that it wasn’t the right thing to do, but rolls up and snuggles into his midsection anyway.

He hears Poe laughing and looks up to find him striding confidently forward.

"Well, well, well. I thought we were going to have another touching homecoming scene, but here you are, canoodling with BB-8.”

“Sorry, I didn’t see it earlier."

“It was in the ship still, has to be lifted out by machine. Can’t do it manually, it's dangerous 'cause the droid's so heavy,” Poe says, gently kicking BB-8’s little robot behind. BB-8 squawks at him.

Finn stands up and BB-8 rolls back, beeping and whirring, and then speeds off in another direction.

“Gonna go harass 3PO, if I had to hazard a guess,” Poe says with a sniff, looking fondly after the droid. Then he looks at Finn, and things go all subdued and quiet for a moment. Finn swallows.

“So, stranger,” Poe says with his distinct air of good nature, eyes twinkling, “what brings you to my neck of the woods?”

“Being cut up by Kylo Ren, mostly,” Finn says before he can stop himself, remembering that honesty isn’t always the best policy. Poe grimaces, and then snorts.

“Forgot how blunt you are. We have so much to catch up on. Just-when did you wake up?” Poe asks, looking excited. “I wanted to stay here and wait for you, but I was only grounded for a month after the Starkiller ordeal and then General Organa had me running rescue missions. Someone was here, right? You were okay?”

“I’m-I was fine,” Finn says, nodding. Well, that isn’t completely true. “I was alone, but...it was fine. There were nurses. I went through physio, it was no big deal."

It was a big deal.

Poe seems to know that.

Poe’s expression softens considerably and he looks down at the ground, smile shrinking and subdued.

"Sorry, buddy. I wanted to be here.”

“I wanted you to be here,” Finn says without really wanting to, and almost bites the words back. He chews his lip. "I mean, not that-I don’t blame you, just...I was looking forward to seeing you, so,” he smiles, a little weakly, “I’m glad you’re back.”

Poe sighs, smiling affectionately at Finn, seeming to look past his eyes and into his mind and wow, it makes Finn jelly-legged and self conscious.

“Well, walk with me, okay? I’m headed back to my room.”

Poe leads the way and Finn walks beside him. Poe talks and talks about what happened on the mission and about how wild it was, but narrowly avoids the elephant in the room.

Finn doesn’t really have any stories to tell. He’s done the same thing every day since he woke up, more or less, and now he’s just...getting back to normal. Poe’s stories are way more exciting, anyway, he thinks. And Poe is way better at telling stories, too.

“This is my room,” Poe says. His room is in the pilot’s wing, a separate building from Finn’s.

“I’m over there,” Finn says, pointing in the general direction of his quarters.

“Oh, you’re with the soldiers?” Poe says, eyebrows going up on his forehead, looking genuinely shocked by this. “Huh. I thought…” then he shakes his head. “Nevermind. Anyway, welcome!”

He swings the door to his room open.

It is marginally nicer than Finn’s, but only slightly, and it’s full of Poe’s stuff. There’s stuff on the floor and the bed and the desk and the chair, bottles and rumpled shirts and a shoebox. Finn looks around more intensely than is polite, but he can’t help it. His room has almost nothing in it; it’s weird to see a living space that actually looks...lived in.

Poe flops down onto the bed with an exhausted groan, and the springs squeak annoyingly.

“I’m so tired, Finn, I could sleep a century,” he rumbles.

Finn isn’t sleepy at all. His schedule is too regimented and strict for him to feel anything except exactly what he’s supposed to feel.

“You should go to bed, then,” Finn says, suddenly feeling like he’s intruding. “I could go back-”

"No, no!” Poe says, sitting up quickly and suddenly, waving his hands around. “Stay!”

Finn shuffles on the spot. He’s not used to this kind of attention. Poe watches him, looks around the room, and licks his lips.

“Hey, you want tea?”

“Tea?”

“I’’l fix you some,” Poe announces, getting up off the bed. “You mind if I hop in the shower real quick? This thing is old as dirt and takes a while to heat up,” he asks, switching on a small electric burner and kettle.

“Uh, no, you can do whatever suits you.”

“Okay, thanks!” Poe says, shedding his white flight jacket onto the bed. “You can sit wherever, what’s mine is yours,” he says, grinning over his shoulder, winking.

Finn snorts and fluffs the jacket out for emphasis.

Poe laughs. “Be back in a jiffy!” he says, and then disappears into the tiny bathroom, closing the door behind him. Finn waits until he can hear the water running before he stalks around the room, examining Poe’s things. He doesn’t have much else to do, and now that he’s alone he realizes that he’s a little flustered, a little warm at the back of his neck. He hopes he isn’t sweaty; he shouldn’t be, not since he only did some light cardio, stretches, and curls before he was torn away from the gym. He sniffs his shirt anyway.

After a few minutes, he sits down on Poe’s bed, feeling like he’s taking up too much space but somehow at ease in the clutter. It makes the room feel less empty and lifeless.

He hears Poe singing quietly in the shower and can’t help smiling to himself.

The kettle begins to whistle and Finn gets up, pouring hot water into the two mugs Poe has set out on his desk. They’re mismatched and small, and Finn likes them. The powdered drink Poe has already deposited into the cups fizzes and liquifies, and Finn brings one to his lips.

He’s had tea before. It was pretty much like this, poor quality but comforting. He tastes it, no sugar, no cream, and it’s nice. It steams pleasantly over his nose and mouth.

Then Poe steps out of the bathroom in a similar cloud of steam and Finn chokes a little bit into his drink, surprised. Finn is used to seeing others naked, so it doesn’t bother him that Poe’s towel is too small, but he knows it’s impolite to stare, so he looks down into his cup.

“Sorry about that. You okay in here?” Poe asks. Finn tries really hard not to hear the sound of Poe toweling off.

“Yeah, I...I fixed your tea,” Finn says.

“Oh, thank you,” Poe says. Finn hears the sound of fabric sliding over skin, hears a fly zip up, and then turns around to hand Poe his cup. Poe grins, his wet, frazzled hair sticking to his face. “Such a gentleman,” he says, taking a sip.

“You look good,” Finn blurts, unsure of what else to say. Poe raises his dark eyebrows and looks at Finn expectantly over his mug. "I mean, the same as I remember, which is nice,” Finn elaborates. “I thought for sure you’d have changed. Maybe grown a beard or something. You think Rey will cut her hair out in space?” he blabs, “If she does, I might not recognize her.”

Poe smiles and slurps his drink again. “Thanks. You look good too. Like, _really,_ ” he snorts, applying a friendly pat to one of Finn’s arms. “You’ve obviously been minding your figure,” he jokes.

Finn shrugs, secretly pleased to have been praised. “Still a stormtrooper somewhere in me, I guess. Can’t justify quitting my old regimen.”

Poe coughs into his drink, spluttering, and wipes his mouth on his sleeve, before looking at Finn again. “Excuse me?”

"Wh-what? What needs clarification?” Finn asks.

“Just…” Poe starts, and then looks off at nothing, eyebrows high on his face, seeming bemused. “I guess I thought you’d be in a hurry to drop all that crap.”

Finn shrugs. “Dunno why you’d think that. It’s all I’m good at, it’s what I’ve always done.” When Poe doesn’t look assured, Finn keeps talking. “I figure I’d best keep things up so I can stay useful. I’m not good at much else besides aiming and shooting and punching, so,” he smiles sheepishly, “I better be damn good at aiming and shooting and punching.”

Poe licks his lips and looks Finn dead in the eye.

“We should get you a hobby,” he concludes. “Besides,” he continues, a sly smile stretching over his face, “I hear you’re good with a lightsaber.”

Finn feels his neck heat up and distracts himself with his tea, sipping at it and leaning against Poe’s dresser. “Nah, everyone else is better.”

“What, you mean the Sith Knight Kylo Ren and the Jedi prodigy Rey? C’mon, give yourself some credit,” Poe says, giving Finn an appreciative once over with his eyes. “I would have killed to see you fight with that thing. What was it like?”

“Hard to say,” Finn muses, because it is. It’s hard to describe. The hilt was heavy but the blade was weightless energy, and swinging it...it was like an extra limb, warm and humming with life. There was something beautiful about it, and something terrifying. “Really cool, though,” he says, because he’s not especially eloquent, and grins. He’s a soldier, not a poet.

Poe laughs.

“I missed you so much,” Poe says and moves closer to Finn. Finn is more aware of it this time, and when it’s less instinct and more intention it’s a little harder for him to accept intimacy. But he does. He takes it because he’s starved for it and because it's Poe who's offering, lets Poe scoop him into a hug, and just holds him gently, chest to chest, Poe’s head on his shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” Poe murmurs, quietly. “The doctors were being so vague about your condition when I left. They kept sayin’, 'he’ll be fine,' and then they’d say, 'he’ll never walk again,' and then they’d say, 'he’s never gonna wake up,' and then they’d say you were fine again.”

Finn blinks hard and looks down Poe’s back. "I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Poe assures gently, “your injury was complicated and hard to predict. But you’re okay, and that’s what matters.”

Finn doesn’t know how long it’s appropriate to hug your friend for, but it must be a really, _really_ long time, because Poe does not let go.

Finn swallows. He doesn’t know if he should say what he’s about to say.

"When I woke up,” he admits, shaky. “I felt so terrible, and no one was there. It was just dark, the middle of the night, I think. The droids found me, I kept asking where you and Rey were and about Kylo Ren, about-about everything, but nobody would give me a straight answer. They just kept telling me to go to sleep,” he continues, sighing. “And I cried. How pathetic is that? I cried ‘cause I was lonely.”

Poe doesn’t say anything, but his grip tightens, and Finn hears him put his mug on the dresser so he can grip Finn completely with both hands. He breathes out a hard, controlled breath, and presses what Finn thinks is a kiss into his neck.

“I don’t fit in here, Poe,” he chokes out.

“Yes you do,” Poe says quietly and firmly, like Finn imagines a mother might, “you’re one of us.”

“I’m not one of anybody,” Finn says, the thoughts finally making themselves into words. He says it out loud. He says it, and then it’s real, then it's out there and he’s not beating it back any more. But now he has to reconcile with it, the sense of belonging he has always wanted but has never had.

“You’re one of us,” Poe repeats, unyielding like stone.

“Even as a stormtrooper, I-I was…” he sniffs and grips Poe, probably too hard. “I was outside. Top of my class, too, y’know? I tried really hard. But I was always FN-2187 when the others were Nines and Slip an-and I was just FN-2187,” he shakes, “until _you._ ”

Poe jerks back, still holding Finn, his face hard, seeming almost angry. For a moment Finn thinks he’s done something wrong, and prepares to apologize.

“Finn, you have me,” Poe says firmly, although his voice is a little shaky. “You have me, and soon you’ll have Snap and Jessika and tons of other people,” he assures. “Rey, too, as soon as she gets back. You’ll never be alone Finn, not while I’m here.”

“But what about when you’re not?” Finn chokes. “What about when it’s just me?”

“I’m lonely when you’re not around, too,” Poe says with all that confidence that he always has, that smile that he always has, that look in his eyes he had when he was putting out all that bravado for Kylo Ren, knowing that help wasn’t coming. “So even if I’m not here, I’m thinking about you, Finn. I thought about you so much when I was away. I barely know you and I can’t stop-” he cuts himself off and looks at the wall behind Finn’s head, reigning something back, chewing his lips, swallowing.

Finn is shaking, head to toe. No one has ever felt that way about him before. Or if they have, they’ve never said it.

“Really?” he asks, his voice a little more wet and weak than he’d like.

Poe seems to think for a moment, on the verge of taking it back or making some kind of wisecrack, before he smiles gently and puts his forehead on Finn’s, so close that their breath mingles.

“ _Really,_ ” Poe says, and it comes out in a whispery breath like a prayer, like they’ve both admitted something they didn’t want to this evening, and it leaves Finn feeling a tad raw. Sympathetic and injured, Finn holds Poe close, smells his shampoo and his clean skin. Finn has never felt more connected to a human being in his entire life. He’s never had this. He’s never made an admission like this one, he’s never shared, he’s never trusted. It feels _amazing._

It makes him feels like he DOES belong. Right here.

Then Poe pushes forward and their lips touch. It’s gentle, barely a touch at all, Poe’s head tilts just slightly, his nose pressing into Finn’s cheek. He doesn’t say anything.

Yes, this is what he should have done before. He should have kissed Poe Dameron before those droids dragged him off, should have picked him up off his feet and spun him around and kissed the daylights out of him, because stars in heaven this is wonderful.

It’s gentle and concerned and wet with tears Finn didn’t realize he was shedding. The little sounds their lips make when they part and then meet again echo through the room and Finn’s mind, centering his attention, like suddenly gravity has been focused on this one spot, the only place in the world that exists.

They part with a shared breath, something sacred passing between them, and Poe exhales slowly. “My job has a high mortality rate. I’m alive because of you, but I might not always be,” he says, snorting. Finn opens his eyes and watches Poe with newfound wonder. “I always thought the right way to go about things was just to not get attached. That, assuming I survive the war, I’d start getting to know people after it was over. But you work your magic quick, buddy,” he says, and sucks another kiss onto Finn’s lips, a contended sigh escaping Finn before he can stop it. “Knew it the moment you first opened opened your mouth and talked to me.”

“I, uh,” Finn mumbles, “I care about you.”

Poe chuckles under his breath. “You look damn good in my clothes, too,” he says, eyes twinkling. Finn’s neck and face were already heated, but now he feels like he might be burning from the inside out, his blood pulsing in his ears, thoughts fuzzy and warm and disorganized. His brain is like a puzzle; one that had been done for him, that has recently been coming apart, and that Poe Dameron just shook violently like an uncooperative pinball machine.

Strangely, as much as he feels it should upset him, he in stead feels that he can now, finally, start putting the pieces back together again.

**Author's Note:**

> babys first Star War. help m e


End file.
